Jon Rahm will not be able to help his team at the LIV Golf Championship.
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LIV Golf signed Jon Rahm with the goal of making the two-time major winner one of the league’s biggest draws for its individual and team championships for years to come.
While Rahm got the job done at the LIV Individual Championship last week, the same won’t be said for this week’s Texas Team Golf Championship.
Shortly before his Legion XIII team settled in to see their first action of the event on Saturday, the team announced that Rahm, its captain, will not play this weekend due to “severe flu symptoms”.
“Jon has been experiencing severe flu symptoms for the past few days,” the team said in a statement posted on social media. “In the best interests of his team and under the advice of his medical team, he will not play this week. He will continue to provide full support to his team.”
The team also announced that John Catlin, a 3-time American DP World Tour winner who has been a reserve player for LIV this season, would take Rahm’s place in the semifinals on Saturday and the finals on Sunday.
Legion XIII earned a bye into Friday’s quarterfinals by finishing second during the regular season. Action opens on Saturday in the semi-final matches, which the four winners and beyond will match in the final on Sunday, which turns into a stroke play, the team with the lowest combined score of the four players taking the title.
The LIV Team Championship has a $50 million prize pool with $14 million shared between the winning team.
‘Big difference’: Jon Rahm explains season-defining gear shift
Jonathan Wall
Rahm has had an up and down season after signing a reported a $300 million deal to join breakaway PGA Tour rival for the third season. The 29-year-old just passed Joaquin Niemann for the overall LIV Individual title by winning LIV Chicago, his second win in three starts and of the season, and has not finished worse than T10 in any LIV start except for a WD at LIV Houston.
But the 2023 Masters winner underperformed in the first three events of the year, finishing T45 in his title defense at Augusta National before missing the cut at the PGA Championship and withdrawing earlier in the week from the US Open due to the same leg injury that forced him to retire at LIV Houston.
He bounced back late in the year, winning his first two LIV events, finishing T7 at the final major of the year, the Open Championship, and fighting for a medal at the Open Championship ahead of a A late ninth collapse saw him finish T5.
Rahm is also involved in the debate surrounding his membership in the DP World Tour. He must retain his membership to retain the right to compete for Europe in the 2025 Ryder Cup, but was suspended from the Tour, as he was from the PGA Tour, when he joined LIV. He can get back on his feet by paying the fines and serving the suspension, but he is currently appealing the suspension – allowing him to play Tournament in the meantime — and has so far indicated that it will not pay the fines.
